The New Basel Capital Accord: Implications for US Agricultural Lenders

Agricultural Finance,

TESTING THE PECKING ORDER THEORY AND THE SIGNALING THEORY FOR FARM BUSINESSES

Numerous empirical studies in the finance field have tested many theories for firms¡¦ capital structure. Under the assumption of asymmetric information, the pecking order theory proposes the financing order for farm businesses, which implies a negative relationship between their cash flow and leverage. Meanwhile, the signaling theory suggests a farms' financing strategy, meaning high quality farms prefer to facilitate their capital rising by sending diverse signals to potential lenders. Could these capital structure theories be applied for farm businesses? This paper tests the applicability of the pecking order theory and the signaling theory for farm businesses. The results show that farm businesses not only follow the pecking order theory but also the signaling theory. In addition, unlike corporate firms who can choose high leverage as financing signals, farm businesses mainly depend on their large size and good historical operation records to facilitate investment financing.Farm Businesses, Pecking Order Theory, Signaling Theory, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods, Q14,

RISK BALANCING USING FARM LEVEL DATA: AN ECONOMETRIC ANALYSIS

In the paper, an econometric model is proposed to test the risk balancing hypothesis using farm level data. For the purpose, a constraint on expected utility maximization with respect to farm financial structure is given. Cluster method is applied to pick out the farms on the efficient frontier under expected utility maximization given risk attitude and actual interest rate. Regression results are given and compared to previous findings. Farm characteristics associated with the risk behaviors of farms with optimal utility are identified and compared with other farms.Risk and Uncertainty,

Signaling Credit Risk in Agriculture: Implications for Capital Structure Analysis

Signaling is an important element in the lender-borrower relationship that influences the cost and availability of debt capital to agricultural borrowers. This paper analyzes the effects of signaling on farm capital structure in conjunction with the pecking order and trade-off theories. The aggregate estimation indicates that signaling does affect agricultural credit relationships through measures of past cash flow and profitability. High-quality borrowers achieve greater credit capacity by providing lenders with valid signals of their financial status, while adjusting toward target debt levels over time and following the pecking order relationship in the short run.farm businesses, pecking order theory, signaling theory, trade-off theory, Agribusiness, Risk and Uncertainty, G11, G32, Q14,

Credit Scoring Models: A Comparison between Crop and Livestock Farms

This paper uses FBFM (Illinois Farm Business Farm Management Association) data to analyze several key factors in the decision to categorize borrowers into acceptable or problematic and to classify borrowers across five classes. Net worth does not play significant role in the decision process for livestock farms, whereas it is significantly important for crop farms. For livestock farms, tenure ratio is not significant across classes and is generally not significant across categories depending on the cut off point used to describe acceptable or problematic borrower. However, it is significant for crop farms. Working capital to gross farm return, return on farm assets, and asset turnover ratio are all significant for both farm types. The operating expense to gross farm return is not an independent variable for livestock farms whereas an independent and significant variable for crop farms.Financial Economics,

Machinery Investment in Illinois: A Study Examining Existing Investment Motivations

In this study, we attempt to prove some previously held ideas of machinery investment decisions using farm level data from Illinois. Investment decisions are analyzed taking into consideration past investment decisions in the county and on the individual farm. The results show there is a correlation between county level purchases and individual farm purchases and investment levels decrease the following year after an initial investment. These results display how non-traditional drivers for investment also play an important role in the investment decision.machinery, investment, keeping up with the Jones', treadmill theory, Farm Management,

A DYNAMIC MODEL OF MICROLENDING IN THE DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

In this paper, we examine the contract design problem of banks that extend loans to poor borrowers and seek to maximize outreach while remaining financially sustainable. A dynamic model is developed that shows how interest rates can be determined based on information about productivity and diligence characteristics of borrowers, investment opportunities, correlation of business activities, peer monitoring costs, and social sanctions. The results indicate that relative to the traditional static models, the dynamic model explains better the current experience in individual and group lending in developing countries.Financial Economics,

Review of Open Source Simulators in ICS/IIoT Security Context

In industrial control systems (ICS), simulation has found widespread use during system design and in tuning process control parameters or exploring the effects of new control algorithms. Simulation enables the assessment of performance at scale and allows research to be conducted by those with limited access to real physical infrastructures. However, as ICSs are often no longer isolated from other networks and the internet, hence are subject to security and safety issues, simulation is also required to understand the issues and their solution. To foster transparent, collaborative and cost-effective studies, demonstrations, and solution development, and attract the broadest interest base, simulation is indeed critical and Open Source is a good way to go since simulators in this category are less expensive to access, install, and use, and can be run with general purpose (non-proprietary) computing equipment and setups. Findings This research presents the following key findings: 1. A lot of Open Source simulation tools exist and span applications areas such as communications and sensor networks (C&WSNs), ICS/SCADA, and IIoT. 2. The functional structures and characteristics that appear common in Open Source simulators include: supported licence types, programming languages, operating systems platforms, user interface types, and available documentation and types. 3. Typical research around Open Source simulators is built around modelling, analysis and optimisation of operations in relations to factors such as flexibility, mobility, scalability, and active user support. No single Open Source simulator addresses all conceivable characteristics. While some are strong in specific contexts relative to their development, they are often weak in other purpose-based research capabilities, especially in the context of IoT. 4. Most of the reviewed Open Source tools are not designed to address security contexts. The few that address security such as SCADASim only consider very limited contexts such as testing and evaluating Denial-of-Service (DoS), Man-in-the-middle (Mitm), Eavesdropping, and Spoofing attacks. Recommendations The following key recommendations are presented: 1. Future developments of Open Source simulators (especially for IIoT) should explore the potential for functionalities that can enable the integration of diverse simulators and platforms to achieve an encompassing setup. 2. Developers should explore the capabilities of generic simulators towards achieving architectures with expansible capabilities into multi-class domains, support easier and faster modelling of complex systems, and which can attract varied users and contributors. 3. Functional characteristics such as; ease of use, degree of community acceptance and use, and suitability for industrial applications, should also be considered as selection and development criteria, and to emphasise simulator effectiveness. This can support consistency, credibility, and simulation system relevance within a domain that is continually evolving. 4. Future Open Source simulation projects developments should consider and adopt the more common structural attributes including; Platform Type, Open Source Licence Type, Programming Language, User Interfaces, Documentation, and Communication Types. These should be further complemented by appropriate editorial controls spanning quality coding, revision control and effective project disseminations and management, to boost simulation tool credibility and wide acceptance. 5. The range of publication dates (earliest to latest) for: citations, code commits, and number of contributors associated to Open Source simulator projects can also support the decision for interests and adoption of specific Open Source projects. 6. Research objectives for ICS/IIoT Open Source simulators should also include security performance and optimisation with considerations towards enhancing confidentiality, integrity and availability. 7. Further studies should explore the evaluation of security topics which could be addressed by simulation – more specifically, proposing how this may be achieved and identifying what can't be addressed by simulation. Investigations into simulation frameworks that can allow multi-mode simulations to be configured and operated are also required. Research into Industry 4.0 System-of-Systems (SoS) security evaluations, dependency, and cascading impacts method or analysis is another area of importanc

Evaluasi Mandiri Pada Sistem Penyelenggaraan Elektronik Berdasarkan Indeks Keamana Informasi (KAMI) Dan ISO 27001 (Studi Kasus: Sistem Litera Uninus)

Universitas Islam Nusantara (Uninus) adalah perguruan tinggi  yang menerapkan teknologi informasi (TI) dalam proses pelaksanaan kewajiban  tridharma perguruan tinggi. Uninus menggunakan sistem pembelajaran online yaitu sistem Litera. Sistem Litera dapat diakses oleh dosen, mahasiswa, tenaga kependidijan, juga para stakeholders. Sistem Litera diakses oleh lebih dari 5000 pengguna. Sistem Litera merupakan bentuk penyelenggaraan sistem elektronik yang dimiliki oleh institusi. Dalam pelaksanaannya sistem Litera dapat mengalami resiko keamanan teknologi informasi yang tidak di harapkan, sehingga menimbulkan dampak yang tidak aman. Oleh karenanya akan di lakukan penilaian mandiri pada penyelenggaran sistem elektronik berdasarkan kategori sistem elektronik yang dimiliki. Indeks Keamanan Informasi adalah alat evaluasi untuk menganalisa tingkat kesiapan pengamanan informasi di suatu organisasi.  Evaluasi dilakukan terhadap area sistem elektronik  yang menjadi target penerapan keamanan informasi yang di definisikan oleh standar ISO 27001. Dengan tujuan untuk menjaga dan melindungi kerahasiaan, integritas dan ketersediaan data.  Proses evaluasi dilakukan melalui sejumlah pertanyaan di area kategori sistem elektronik. Metode penelitian yang digunakan adalah metode penelitian deskriptif yang mendeskripsikan kejadian yang sebenarnya.  Tujuan penelitian adalah untuk menghasilkan nilai hasil evaluasi kategori sistem elektronik yang dapat di gunakan dalam peningkatan pengamanan informasi dimasa yang akan datang. Hasilnya adalah skor penetapan kategori sistem elektronik dengan jumlah = 39. Dan tingkat ketergantungan kategori sistem elektronik strategis. Dimana  sistem elektronik yang berdampak serius terhadap kepentingan umum, pelayanan publik, kelancaran penyelenggaraan negara atau pertahanan dan keamanan negar

Evaluating Content Selection in Human- or Machine-Generated Summaries: The Pyramid Scoring Method

From the outset of automated generation of summaries, the difficulty of evaluation has been widely discussed. Despite many promising attempts, we believe it remains an unsolved problem. Here we present a method for scoring the content of summaries of any length against a weighted inventory of content units, which we refer to as a pyramid. Our method is derived from empirical analysis of human-generated summaries, and provides an informative metric for human or machine-generated summaries